InnerTeub

So, I’m not really a fan of March. It’s hard to dress for (20 degrees yesterday! 70 degrees today!), usually kind of drafty, bright enough to pretend it’s spring, but not warm enough for green grass, so everything is kind of brown and gray and … bright. I mean, be cold and wintery white or be warm and green, right? However I slice it, I dislike March, and I super dislike running outside in March. It’s just no fun.

So of course every March I seem to re-enter the world of running and racing, with this March being no exception. In case you’re keeping track at home: my last race was Ironman CdA in June 2010, after which I took a nice long recovery so I could be refreshed enough to rock the Running of the Green 7k in March 2012. 

(And yes, I’m glad you asked: I *did* spend the entire race trying to figure out how long 7k is. “If 10k is 6.2 miles and a 5k is 3.1 miles then a 7k must be…” Sadly, the last – wait, two years ago- March race I did was an 8k, so the mental gymnastics I did figuring out that distance did me NO GOOD AT ALL. If we ever switch to the metric system I am so hosed.)

Anyway! Race pics! Which reminds me: one thing I really did love about this race was going with a group of friends from our gym. The majority of my good good friends in DC came from long weekends on bikes or in cars traveling to races, and it was really enjoyable to be spending my time in this fashion again. Both Mike and I went to be Sunday night saying “man, what a great weekend”, and I know that the act of being back in a race setting with friends had a lot to do with it. So much so that it can even have me enjoying a March day.

My uncle died a few weeks ago. It was sad (horrific, unimaginable, tragic) but not necessarily unexpected. He was diagnosed with cancer last April and it was up and down until it was mostly down, and then, as these things go, it was over.

I liked my uncle quite a lot, and I’m sad for many reasons that this has happened, but the thing that I can’t shake is how terrible it is for my grandmother; this is the third child she has buried and, I mean, I get that it’s not really the quantity of loss that makes my uncle’s death sadder than other untimely losses, but… no one should have to bury any children, let alone have to suffer the gut punch of losingthree.

Anyway. At the risk of this turning into an entry detailing exactly how deeply his loss will cut across those who love him (his wife, his goddaughter, his three remaining siblings, etc), I’d rather share one story about my uncle that I heard at the funeral that has had me smiling for a few days: his coworker was describing my uncle’s last performance review at work. Performance reviews are (in my experience and certainly for lawyers, which my uncle was) an opportunity to talk at great length about one’s accomplishments, and to go on and on in order to really hammer home the point of one’s talent and brilliance and all around value.

My uncle, for his review, simply wrote: “Mike Pescatello: What A Guy”

Indeed.

In a move of shocking stupidity, I inserted myself into a comment thread on Facebook that quickly dissolved into discussing the validity of contraception as health.

There’s no one to blame but myself, but I mean, COME ON. When faced with comments like:

 “contraception is not a health issue. Contraception is something to prevent pregnancy when people are in search of personal pleasure”

I was COMPLETELY UNABLE to control my blood pressure and you think I’d have learned nothing from my years of being taunted by my brother into every stupid argument possible (most notably: the Christmas eve argument about whether or not my opinion that I did not want to live in New York City was valid. His position: Invalid Opinion. My position: OMG ARE YOU KIDDING ME WHAT THE HELL [repeat at the dinner table for three hours])

Anyway. I was feeling really beat down by the comments on this thread because a) you can’t win this argument, and b) I like the friend whose wall this was on, and I didn’t want her to think I was going all crazy on her friends.

And then she posted this, and I wanted to stand up and cheer. Shanti, my dear, you are fantastic. Thank you.

From her post:

I find I write here more when I’m reading a lot; good books will get my mind moving and narrating and I find it easy to use this space as an outlet.Which is a segue into why I haven’t been writing here: I’ve been reading SUCH CRAP. It started innocently enough: I was in the Charlotte airport and saw for sale the cheesiest looking book I’ve ever seen:

You guys. It’s a SERIES. There’s MORE THAN ONE. (Thank you for defining “series”, Liz.) Sure enough:  To Wed A Wild Lord is the fourth in the Hellions of Halstad Hall series, and obviously the only thing for me to do was go get the first one – “The Truth About Lord Stoneville”

Look. I’m not proud. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which was worse: paying money for the book so I could read it on a Kindle and maintain plausible deniability, or getting it for free from the library and show my shame to the world as I read. (I went library- momentary shame on an airplane but no trace of its existence once returned.) (Unless you’re flying with coworkers) (pro tip: smutty paperbacks do NOT fit inside the covers of the latest Harvard Business Review.) (I’ve heard.)

Soooooooo. That’s where I’ve been. Like I said, I’m not proud. These books are basically the same story, over and over, stories that take roughly two hours per book to finish, and while I’m positive those two hours could be used in MUCH BETTER pursuits, for the past few weeks, it’s been the mental chewing gum that I needed. I think I’m about to snap out of if, however, and will be hopefully returning here with many intelligent THOUGHTS about THINGS and not caught up in the web of books like “Let Sleeping Rouges Lie.”

A poem sent to me by mother, which is fitting given how much she and I really enjoy ourselves some good shoe shopping (although to be fair that’s about 80% “the company we have” and 20% “the shoes we find”)

(maybe 70/30)

Shoe Magic by Nikki Grimes

The shoe rack
is stacked
with promise,

With dreams
waiting
to wake.

What you do
where you go,

who you grow

Up to be
depends on
The steps you take

I’ve been traveling for the past three weeks, with one more week to go. I don’t mind this kind of travel; it’s a part of my job, not that frequent, the change of pace comes at the right moment , and while this kind of whirlwind means most personal administration gets forgotten (email? Blog? Eh?) it’s not a permanent routine and thus totally doable.

(to level set the crazy, though: in the past 16 days I’ve been in: Portland, DC, Baltimore, Ft. Worth, San Francisco, Birmingham, Milwaukee, and Raleigh, and next week will hit Orange County and Portland [again]. Whew.)

(I am always hesitant to complain — wait, actually, I’m NEVER hesitant to complain however I am cognizant that while I’m complaining, it does air on the side of douchebaggery. I think there is a certain type of personality that takes pride in being ohmygod so busy and in every exasperated sigh and complaint of “God, not this airport again” there is an element of bragging about how important we are as individuals that our very presence is required in person for a job to be done correctly. I get that this can come across, I really do. But I also get that like, 16 days of travel is tiring regardless, even though I am the exact type of personality to volunteer for this type of gig.)

But let’s not let this discussion of why one would complain interrupt me from actually complaining:

So, for what, 10 years? Southwest has been doing the open seating thing, where you board the plane in order you check in and take whatever seat you want. This is nowhere close to new procedure, and I dare say it is no more arbitrary than having the airline assign you a seat. (“But what of my first class option?” you ask. Yes, yes, I know. It is terrible back in steerage. But it’s also an $80 dollar ticket, so like, work with it.) But even though the open seating idea isn’t new, even though it has proven to actually be, in many cases, more efficient than airline assigned seats, there is still always that one guy that has to bitch loudly and frequently while lining up: “What are we, cattle? [LOUD SIGH]”

Dude. You bought the ticket. You knew it was Southwest, and you knew this was how they board. No one forced you to be here. Shut it, already.

Compare the open seating boarding procedure to my most recent experience boarding a United Airline flight:

There we all were, crushed in a mass, waiting to board. At the gateway there were two roped off lines next to each other for approaching the jetway: one on the left with a red carpet, one on the right with a black carpet. First Class was called to board, then Business Select, then Premier, then Global Something Something, then 1k… Etc. (United Airlines has clearly taken notes from the caste systems in India and Downton Abbey).

All these lovely people walked down the left side red carpeted path. When the gate agent finally got around to boarding us working class folk, we also proceeded down the left side path, following the example set by our First Class/Premier Exec/Global Something Something/1k betters. A line of probably 20 people had formed and walked down but before anyone was let through -I’m not even kidding you here-  the gate agent made everyone REVERSE DOWN THAT PATH,  MOVE ONE FOOT TO THE RIGHT, AND WALK UP ON THE BLACK – not red- CARPET. Like, he literally refused to take their ticket and let them by if they didn’t come up the side that was explicitly for non-elite members.

I mean, come on. The important people were already on the plane! They’d never know that we defiled their red carpet! We won’t tell, promise!  Just let us board in our herd of seating zones and thank our lucky stars we didn’t have to put up with the indignity of open seating. Whew.

Day 3: The JCrew Saturday Pant is A Slippery Slope to Wearing Leggings to work, a photo by LizScott on Flickr.

I didn’t do it, but Reader: it was close.

My husband to me, just now:

“When you come home, be sure to check out the ski section of the garage.”

Please note: the ski section is next to the bike section which is adjacent to the work section which holds the power washing station, which can be seen from the MooseTheDog station, and is not to be confused with the car section.

What I’m saying is: this garage is larger than almost every apartment I have ever lived in.

Yeeeeaaaars ago I belonged to this message board at Television Without Pity. It was a message board for people who watched The West Wing, but this particular board was for non-show related talk, and I’d feel slightly embarrassed about being such an active member of an Internet community except: a) It’s almost 2012 and I think we’re all over that by now and b) that board functioned in almost identical fashion to my Twitter timeline – a group of people discussing random topics throughout the day, topics I could choose to join in on or just observe, and Twitter is hip so apparently I was just way ahead of my time.

At some point on that board someone asked people to list their favorite inspirational pictures. I had recently read an article in Runners World about Katherine Switzer, the first woman to register and run the Boston Marathon. At the time (1967), females were  not allowed to officially enter the race (running long distances was at that time not thought to be good for our, um, delicate systems), but Katherine had qualified and registered with a gender neutral name (K.V. Switzer – her first and middle initial), and lined up to run the race.

When a race official saw her on the race course with official numbers, he shouted “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers!” and attempted to physically remove her from the course.

The pictures of this incident are jaw dropping to me—the violence and anger present in trying to remove a female from the race course still gets my blood boiling. I remember reading this article and seeing this picture and thinking to myself how amazing it was for this woman to keep plodding along, one foot in front of another, almost oblivious to the world around her trying to tell her  “You can’t.”

A few weeks ago, I opened my Runners World Quote of the Day, and found again Katherine Switzer:

When I go to the Boston Marathon now, I have wet shoulders—women fall into my arms crying. They’re weeping for joy because running has changed their lives. They feel they can do anything.

–  Katherine Switzer

Goddamn if that’s not the truth. I started running because I was dealing with chronic illness and I felt that if I could keep moving it meant I was not sickly; I kept running (and triathloning and crossfitting) because the feeling I get when I’m doing those things makes me feel like I can do anything.

So there you go, kids. That’s my feel good running quote of the day for you. Keep sweating, etc.

My stepdaughter spends Christmas with her mom’s family, which means Christmas for my side of the family is just 8 adults, no kids. This means that in addition to lots of late nights boozing and late mornings sleeping, our Christmas shopping lists are different from a lot of my friends who make the holiday about their little ones.

This year we decided to high tech the shopping (well: “high tech”) and make Google Doc spreadsheets for each person. Each sheet has a desired item, a link if appropriate, and a column for who has purchased it. Everyone has access to these lists except the recipient. It’s working out well so far — things are added that we know people would like, and we can pick and choose from a host of things we might not considered. I like it. I like getting people gifts I know they’ll enjoy, and I like the community aspect of it. It’s been fun to collaborate with my sibling’s spouses about gifts and what is wanted.

Anyway, with regards to this, I asked Mike about my list, which prompted the following IM conversation:

 me:  How’s my list looking? need any ideas?
 Mike:  depends. do you want anything besides gift certificates to Lowes, a new cordless drill, and a radial arm saw?
 me:  … i do
 Mike:  really?
 me:  shocking, i know
 Mike:  feel free to send ideas, but I think you’ll really like the new drill.